Governance with Chinese Wisdom

Due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, China has announced the postponement of this year's "Two Sessions," the major annual political meetings generally scheduled for March.
The "Two Sessions" is the popular name for the meetings of China's main political bodies - the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
The postponement, however, does not take away any global attention from the political event, as 2020 marks a decisive year to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects and win the battle against poverty, as well as the concluding year of the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20).
Modernizing Government's System and Capacity
The "Two Sessions" this year are special as they need to finish two agendas in terms of state governance.
A road map for implementing the guiding principles adopted at the fourth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held last October will be decided. The CPC made a systematic and across-the-board review on China's state and governance systems at the fourth plenary session of its 19th Central Committee. It revealed the strengths of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and set out goals of endeavor to improve the institutions of the Party and the government in the long run. It pledged to modernize China's system and capacity for governance so as to consolidate the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, do justice to the strengths of the system, and improve its capacity to practice scientific, democratic, and law-based governance. The CPC also called for efforts to improve the livelihood of both urban and rural residents in a coordinated manner and enhance the supporting systems in a bid to meet people's ever-increasing needs for a better life. The Party committed it will uphold and improve the system on bettering ecology and promote harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. Upholding and improving the independent foreign policy of peace, it vowed to stay steadfast in safeguarding national sovereignty, security and development interests, championing world peace and common development, as well as work to build a community with a shared future for mankind.
The second agenda is about reflecting on the all-hands-on-deck battle against the COVID-19 outbreak. The novel coronavirus broke out in China's Wuhan City early this year and rapidly spread nationwide as it coincided with the Spring Festival travel rush. The CPC Central Committee acted swiftly and set up a leading group for the epidemic's containment. Chinese President Xi Jinping has directed the work. An across-the-board multi-level epidemic prevention system with Hubei and its capital city Wuhan as the center was established, and aggressive measures were taken to stem the coronavirus outbreak in a scientific, orderly, and targeted manner. It is a battle that has involved every Chinese person. The CPC Central Committee took the overall leadership and coordinated the containment efforts. Party committees and governments at various levels were assigned with specific tasks and responded rapidly in terms of resource allocation and social governance. Resources from various sectors of life have been effectively channeled into the epidemic control, showing the country's institutional strength.
The battle against the epidemic proved a major test for China's system and capacity for governance. Drawing lessons from this experience, China will continue improving the national governance system and capacity to respond to emergencies based on the shortfalls and weakness exposed during this epidemic. Containing major public health risks from the source becomes a more important focus. Meanwhile, competent departments have released information on the epidemic and control efforts in an open, transparent, and responsible manner, and worked in tandem with the international community. Officials with the World Health Organization have also recommended China's practices in epidemic control for other countries.
China, as the second largest economy in the world, is committed to the policy of reform and opening-up. To sustain growth, China needs the world as much as the world needs it. Its ideas and models for governance have attracted widespread global attention and discussions.
Pursuing the Common Good
When it comes to governance, China sees domestic, regional, and global situations as a whole. Literati and officials in ancient China regarded "cultivating themselves, managing the family, governing the state, and ruling the world" as their life-long pursuit and route to success. It shows the way of Chinese people dealing with personal matters, the state, and the world from a holistic perspective. In fact, China's traditional worldview advocates an open and multi-center approach to governing the world.
With new progress on the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, China derives wisdom from its time-honored history, keeps abreast of the times, and develops a new view on governance in the new era. Featuring inclusiveness, it gives special attention to the wellbeing of people of the world. The approach is to build a community with a shared future for mankind.
Most specifically, China is promoting the Belt and Road Initiative. Starting from pragmatic cooperation with countries along the routes, China has its eyes on global connectivity and a more open, inclusive, and balanced order for economic globalization so that all countries can benefit from cooperation. The country also advocates the building of a community with a shared future with neighboring countries and Africa. By promoting connectivity as well as inclusive and mutually beneficial cooperation, the initiative goes beyond regionalism, which is traditionally seen to be antagonistic toward globalization, and becomes the bridge connecting different regions across the world toward the goals of a globally connected partnership network and a community with a shared future for mankind.
Taking Responsibility
The community with a shared future for mankind advocated by China is like a big family, in which members reach consensus, and have a full and rational understanding of common interests. They trust each other and look out for each other. By now, the practices in this regard have presented notable results through win-win cooperation.
China, the largest developing country in the world, is playing an increasingly important role in international affairs and global governance. Taking improving the wellbeing of the world's people as its due responsibility, the country has made resolute and concrete moves to fulfill such responsibility. The country has set up the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to finance regional connectivity projects and the China International Development Cooperation Agency in charge of foreign assistance programs.
Since the 18th CPC National Congress, China has witnessed unprecedented improvement in terms of economy, defense, and comprehensive national strengths, people's livelihood, environment, and international position. It has been contributing the most to global economic growth for several consecutive years and achieved a modern miracle by lifting more than 70 million people out of poverty.
Domestically, China advances comprehensive reform and innovation-driven development in a bid to build itself into a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful. Internationally, it follows the path of peaceful development, stays committed to opening its market to the outside world, championing economic globalization, and advancing the major country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics. The Belt and Road Initiative it advocates has boosted economic development in countries and regions concerned, and expanded international cooperation.
Maintaining an Inclusive Spirit
Due to the differences in social institutions and ideologies of China and Western countries, and disputes over national interests and international governance between developed and developing economies, countries face an impasse to reach consensus on the global governance system and rules.
Xi said that differences in ideologies, social institutions, and development paths should not become barriers hindering exchanges among civilizations, nor be used as an excuse to provoke confrontation. "We should actively promote cultural diversity, advance exchanges among civilizations, and learn from each other rather than exclude each other so that the world culture could be colorful and rich," said Xi.
With accelerating economic globalization, cultural exchanges are becoming an important part of international relations. Exchanges among different civilizations can increase understanding, help build the world into a more harmonious place, and play a role in steering the international governance towards fair, just, reasonable, and orderly development.
In the keynote speech delivered at the opening ceremony of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations in May 2019, Xi said, "We need to uphold the beauty of each civilization and the diversity of civilizations in the world. The aspiration for all that is beautiful is a common pursuit of humanity that nothing can hold back. We should keep our own civilizations dynamic and create conditions for other civilizations to flourish. Together we can make the garden of world civilizations colorful and vibrant."
To ensure sound and orderly development of multitudinous civilizations in the world, it is necessary to build a new order for exchanges among civilizations, by upholding the principles of mutual respect, inclusiveness and mutual learning. The joint building of the global governance system provides an important guarantee for such an order. However, there are still conflicts and confrontations arising from cultural differences in building the global governance system. Misunderstandings among cultures or prejudices against certain cultures have not been eliminated. With joint efforts in global governance, the colorful and vibrant garden of the world civilizations will be a reality in the near future.
China has set two centenary goals. By 2021 when the CPC celebrate its centenary, the country will complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects. By 2049 when the People's Republic of China celebrates its centenary, it will build itself into a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, and harmonious.
China needs to keep abreast of the times, draw experience from the past, and develop the state and governance systems. During the upcoming "Two Sessions," China will look back on its social and economic development over the past year and set development goals for 2020. In practice, China's governance system and capacity are improving. At the same time, it will share its development ideas with the international community.